The mind is, in every state, a confederation of psychic entities.
—William James
I propose to relate my almost five decades of research, psychotherapy, and shamanic and yogic practices, as well as teaching experience, on the role of changing states of consciousness in psychological health and spiritual growth. My interest in this area was sparked in the early 1960s, when, as a graduate student, I collaborated with Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and others in the Harvard research projects on what we called “consciousness-expanding” substances.
At that time psychology in the Harvard Graduate School of Social Relations was dominated by the two radically different paradigms of behaviorism and psychoanalysis—so different that the strict Skinnerian behaviorists even had a separate building, where they ran their experiments on schedules of reinforcement in pigeons and rats. In accord with the integrative approach of the Social Relations programs, we studied how Freudian ideas were being applied outside the framework of individual psychoanalytic therapy—for example, in cultural anthropology. I appreciated the integrative approach: my first published paper in an academic journal applied findings from animal learning studies to better understand human learning in neurosis and in psychotherapy.
In that academic environment, drug-induced experiences of “expanded consciousness” were like an intellectual bombshell. Harvard faculty and administrators reacted with alarm and disapproval to the approach Leary espoused—which was for the researchers to first have the experience themselves before giving the drug to others. He pointed out that a strict behaviorist approach to these states was absurd—there was no behavior to observe, as the subject might lie silently for hours, with only an occasional “whew” of amazement. On the other hand, psychoanalysis also could not offer any understanding of these unusual states. The psychoanalyst I was seeing for my personal analysis involving dreams and the like told me without judgment (to his credit) that he did not know what to make of the experiences I was describing.
Although the works of C. G. Jung were not on the curriculum at the Harvard Department of Social Relations, it wasn’t until we started reading Jung and his explorations of Eastern wisdom traditions, like Tibetan Buddhism and Yoga, that we began to find conceptual maps and a deeper understanding of the spiritual dimensions of psychedelic experiences. Following a suggestion of Aldous Huxley, we adapted The Tibetan Book of the Dead as a manual for psychedelic experiences—where “dying” was seen as analogous to relinquishing egoic self-images, and “rebirth” as re-entry to the consciousness of ordinary existence. My interest in Eastern philosophies, worldviews, and practices has remained a constant throughout my life. For years I taught courses comparing Eastern and Western theories concerning consciousness and self, and this blending of interests is reflected in the present book.
Leary’s most important contribution to the theoretical understanding of states of consciousness was what came to be known as the set-and-setting hypothesis, according to which the content of a psychedelic experience could only be understood by considering the set or intention, as well as the setting or context. The drug, according to this view, acted as a kind of nonspecific catalyst, propelling the individual into another state of consciousness. This is the feature that sets psychedelic drugs apart from any other drug known to medicine: they do not affect liver or heart or muscular function. They affect the so-called “higher” functions of the brain, and thus the very means of our perception and interpretations of reality. Later, in my courses on states of consciousness, I came to apply the set-and-setting model, to all states of consciousness, including the ordinary waking state, dreams, meditation, hypnosis, etcetera.
Although Leary certainly knew of William James, his illustrious predecessor as Harvard psychologist from a century before, I don’t recall him ever explicitly mentioning James’s principle of radical empiricism. But Leary was, like James, a proponent of the scientific, empirical approach to gathering knowledge—and of extending this approach (contrary to behaviorism) to our knowledge of interior states. Thus, our initial research studies focused on gathering questionnaire and interview data from subjects who had these experiences and analyzing them in the light of the set-and-setting theory. I describe and discuss William James’s epistemology of radical empiricism in chapter 4.
After completing my PhD in clinical psychology at Harvard (for which I was not permitted to do research on the already taboo subject of psychedelics), I obtained a one-year postdoctoral fellowship to study pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School. I immersed myself in the technical literature on the biochemistry and neurophysiology of psychoactive drugs—which has remained a life-long interest. In the course of my life I have edited four books in which accounts of the subjective experiences with psychoactive plant drugs are combined with surveys of the objective scientific knowledge (both biological and cultural) about these substances: The Ecstatic Adventure (LSD), Through the Gateway of the Heart (MDMA), Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca, and Sacred Mushroom of Visions: Teonanácatl. In the present book, I describe findings and theories on the neurochemical bases of states of consciousness in Appendix A (page 339).
Before coming to the Harvard Graduate School of Social Relations, I had spent my undergraduate years at The Queen’s College, Oxford University, where I studied philosophy (which was mainly Wittgensteinian linguistic analysis) and psychology (which was the experimental laboratory kind). My favorite philosophy professor at Oxford was John L. Austin, who advocated the analysis of the hidden philosophical assumptions in ordinary language and tracking the etymological roots of words for clues to our perception of the world. I have practiced this approach and learned from it my whole life. In chapters 2 and 3, I pursue some of the fascinating semantic associations of the concept of consciousness, particularly in relation to our notions of space and time. I resonate with the Buddhist teaching that consciousness or mind is like the space in which thoughts and sensations appear and disappear, again and again.
At the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) I taught a course on Altered States of Consciousness for over twenty years, in which we discussed the common states we’re all familiar with, as well as the unusual states of mysticism, or those induced by drugs, or yogic practices, or music, or movement, or any number of other catalysts and triggers. I tried to normalize alterations of consciousness, wanting to disconnect the term “altered state” from implications of psychopathology. Only in the last ten years or so, I finally found what I believe to be the root of my discomfort with the term: “altered” implies something was done to you—contradicting the core insight on the centrality of set or intention. I have since that time stopped, or at least decreased, my use of the term “altered states.” I relate the details of my semantic conversion experience on this term in chapter 1.
I do still use the concept of “state of consciousness,” which is always defined by a period of time between two transitions. And I argue for clearly distinguishing this from the idea of levels of consciousness, which is a completely different paradigm: these levels are considered permanent structural features of our psyche and of the world. I elaborate on these paradigm differences in chapter 5, and also point out that there is a third paradigm—that of stages of consciousness development. In Western psychologies the development of consciousness in childhood and the entire life cycle is a core theme. Eastern philosophies are more often concerned with stages of development associated with spiritual practices.
In chapter 7, I describe the four common states familiar to everyone—waking, sleeping, dreaming, and relaxing or meditating. Comparing Western research findings in the psychophysiology of these states with Yogic and Buddhist teachings (which also recognize four basic states) yields some fascinating convergences, as well as striking differences. The biggest difference is that in the West we assume we normally have consciousness, except when we’re unconscious in sleep, anesthesia, or coma. Yogic and Buddhist teachings insist that unconsciousness (avidya) is the default condition of the human being from birth on—and consciousness can only be developed or cultivated through yogic and mindfulness practices.
In chapter 8, I present a conceptual framework for distinguishing common states in terms of two dimensions—the level of energy or arousal, and the pleasure-pain spectrum. This model deals only with the subjective energy level and feeling tone of the different states, and not with particular contents of thoughts, images, and the like. The states induced by psychoactive stimulants and sedatives can be mapped on these dimensions—but not the psychedelics, because their actions are too varied and complex.
Expanded and expansive states, which I discuss in chapter 9, involve a broadening and deepening of the scope of attention and perception, such as occurs when we awaken. Expansion of consciousness may occur with psychedelic drugs, but can also occur with mystical practices, or be triggered spontaneously in the fire of creative inspiration, by a walk in an old-growth forest, or by a soul-stirring musical performance.
Although the ability to contract or focus awareness is a normal and essential mental function, identical to what we call concentration, unconsciously and involuntarily contracted states involve a fixated narrowing of attention and perception. I discuss involuntary contracted states, of which the most familiar are states of fear and states of rage, in chapter 10. In more extreme and repetitive form, we recognize these contracted states in obsessions, compulsions, and addictive behaviors.
In chapter 11, I discuss the elusive and ill-understood process of dissociation or disconnection—the opposite process of associative connection. Every state transition—for example, waking up—involves a degree of dissociation from the previous state, as we enter into the mindspace and timestream of the new state. Sometimes the switching from one state to another occurs unconsciously, and may involve different ego-states or even multiple personas. Hypnotic trance, which involves a directed dissociation from ordinary reality, is often the only way that such split identities can be brought to consciously relate with one another. The relative preponderance of associative and dissociative processes varies in different states of consciousness, as I discuss in chapter 12. Recognizing them can contribute greatly to the healing of psychopathology and the deepening of psychospiritual growth.
In the final chapter 13, I discuss some relatively unfamiliar states of consciousness involving a high degree of dissociation from ordinary reality—states that were quite unusual in the past, but which have been more widely reported in our times. Near-death experiences (NDE) occur when people have crossed over the threshold and returned, bringing astonishing messages from the hereafter. In out-of-body experiences (OBE) the people find themselves in a kind of double or subtle body, being able to fly around the ordinary time-space reality and look down on their physical form. In mediumistic states, also called channeling, some other being—a deceased ancestor, angelic guide, or ET—“comes through” and offers healings and teachings.
It is my hope that these reflections on various states of consciousness, both ordinary and extraordinary, may help awaken in the reader a greater sense of the vastness of human experience and of their evolutionary spiritual potentials.